Does It Matter If the UK Could Not Recapture The Falkland Islands Again?

 

The recapture of the Falkland Islands in 1982 is, rightly, one of the proudest moments of post-war British military history. The operation to send a task force thousands of miles from home, operating at the end of a lengthy logistical supply chain and then fight against a brave, talented, and professional foe before securing victory is something that represents a truly audacious military operation. The importance of fighting to defend your territory and protect your sovereignty is also a message carried to this day by Ukraine, in the valiant efforts by the magnificent women and men of the Ukrainian armed forces repelling the illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion.

The question that has dogged media coverage since this point, usually in light of defence reviews and cuts to the armed forces is ‘could the UK mount another Falklands operation?’ Its an article that has been rolled out many times over the years, usually with soundbites from whichever ‘I used to be someone important’ or ‘I like to think I’m an expert’ retired senior officer happens to be contactable on the day. It is guaranteed to get read by many, rile up readers and generate ad-traffic which is the name of the game these days. It was only last week that this article reared its head again, this time in the Telegraph, where it reported on concerns by veterans of the war that the UK could not recapture the Falklands if required.

When articles like this get printed, they usually generate a phenomenally predictable set of responses and ever increasingly fantastic scenarios about how the UK could lose control of the Falkland Islands, which in turn demonstrates the enormous peril we’re all in right now. Last week was no exception…

If you listen to internet experts, the current risk to the Falklands is that the Argentineans could apparently send a cruise ship full of marines into the islands, land them and somehow take over. Alternatively they could send a passenger jet full of commandos, pretend to be having an inflight emergency and then land at RAF Mount Pleasant and then take over in an Entebbe raid. Finally they could somehow have magically regenerated their forces via a benevolent third party (currently favoured partner is China) and launch an invasion. In this scenario sometimes the Chinese will land too, helping take over the Falklands on behalf of a grateful Argentina.  At this point the UK will clearly have lost the war due to our weakened ‘woke armed forces’ being too busy singing kumbaya to have time to defend the country. It’s hard to know where to begin with this nonsense, but it is helpful to occasionally debunk it and remind people that things aren’t quite as bad as they imagine.

In the case of the first scenario, which we’ll call ‘Speed 3’ on the grounds its even worse than ‘Speed 2’, the whole premise relies on managing to get a cruise liner into a harbour without anyone realising it isn’t actually a cruise liner. For starters cruise liners don’t generally have vehicle ramps in the way a military assault ship does, and they are reliant on host nation support for berthing, power and getting ashore. The bigger cruise liners use transfer boats which will land passengers and shuttle them to and from the ship.

The fundamental problem with this scenario is, assuming that no one in the Islands spots a mystery unplanned cruise liner turning up and doesn’t assume its an issue, how do you get your troops ashore? At best you’ll get a small cadre of uniformed troops on the ground before the alarm is raised and all hell breaks loose. At best you may get two or three loads of passengers onto the island before both the Falkland Islands Defence Force (HQ in Stanley) or the garrison at Mount Pleasant are scrambling to repel you.

Even if you can get your troops ashore, you’ve got a small number of marines on the ground, no means of landing heavy support, logistics or comms and no easy way of getting other reinforcements (assuming the UK would probably notice an Argentine warship sailing towards Stanley). This means your troops are sitting ducks against a heavily armed garrison which also possesses a runway capable of accommodating modern aircraft bringing reinforcements very quickly. This doesn’t end well for the invaders.

The next scenario, which we’ll call “Airplane 3” in homage to a plot even sillier than the original 2 movies (‘surely you can’t be serious Humphrey – I am, and don’t call me Shirley’) involves a planeload of commandos landing and taking over the airbase. There are several issues with this plan. Firstly it requires the UK, which has over 40 years of running air traffic control in the region and which has a thorough understanding of flight patterns to spot that an aircraft unlike any ever before seen on that route, has diverted so badly off commercial lanes that it needs to land. Secondly it assumes the aircraft is permitted to land without being escorted in by the resident QRA flight of Typhoon interceptors (and given they usually escort in visiting jets, this seems highly unlikely). It then assumes that having let them land, the Argentine forces rapidly escape the aircraft and run amok around the airfield without being stopped or caught. This again seems rather unlikely and also doesn’t end well for the invaders.

The final suggestion that somehow Argentina reequips their military is the first point at which we’re seeing a vaguely sensible idea. There is no doubt that Argentina would like to rebuild its armed forces, but they are an incredibly low priority for funding. The Argentine Navy comprises three 40 year old destroyers, a small number of corvettes and OPVs and a single amphibious cargo transport ship. It has no active submarines, no modern warships and no naval aviation capability to speak of. The Argentine Air Force does not operate any modern fighter jets, and may have at best  6 A4 Skyhawks active, a derivative of a fighter aircraft that first flew 69 years ago. There is no political support, or funding to buy new fighter jets.

To create a scenario where Argentina poses a serious military threat to the Islands requires several things to happen. It needs a sustained period of years of investment to order, build, deliver, train and operate an entirely new navy, air force and army capable of conducting amphibious operations, and have this underpinned by an effective logistics and munitions stockpile. Even if China could provide the entirety of this force for a pittance, it would still take many years to build and deliver. It would also require a significant expansion of Argentine personnel strength and refurbishment of their military bases. All of these are moves that would no doubt be noticed by the UK and also South American member states with both alarm and appropriate responses. If the threat level changed to the extent that more reinforcements were needed in the islands, this could be done discretely and ensure that Argentine options were countered appropriately. If we are at the stage where the Argentineans have managed to bring forces together, train them in a combined operation, deploy to the region and manage to maintain the element of surprise, then frankly this would be the greatest intelligence failure in British history. It is difficult to envisage circumstances where such moves would not be noticed or acted on in some way.

Even if they did manage to get to the islands and land, the Argentines will then encounter the problem of capturing the fortress that is Mount Pleasant. Built in the 1980s, the MPA complex is the ultimate Cold War airfield and represents the last entirely new military airbase ever built by the RAF from scratch. It is a veritable fortress, placed in an intentionally difficult position that is hard for an attacker to march to and attack on foot and even harder to get vehicles to. It is a long distance from Argentina, making it harder to get air raids in without being picked up by the extensive air defence systems in place. There is a wide number of defensive positions and in a time of  tension, every one in the garrison would be well armed and able to quickly fill a defensive role.

Any attack would need to move quickly to deny a runway intended to survive a complex attack and remain open and which would shortly after the first invasion signs were seen, be teeming with seriously pissed off British reinforcements spoiling for a fight. Control of the runway would also see rapid reinforcement of land attack aircraft such as the Typhoon which would pose a real challenge to any attacking force. The attacker would need to land, advance towards a hostile site without easy cover in place and no easy location to get stores or dig in. They would then need to advance onto a facility which for nearly half a century has been waiting for this attack and taking its training responsibilities very seriously, and where they know every inch of the land. They’d then need to try and launch a frontal assault onto arguably the single best defended conventional military installation operated by the British military and do so in a way that manages to both capture the site and deny the runway for an extended period. It is, to put it mildly, a wicked problem.

In the most extreme of these scenarios, some people assume that China would somehow align with Argentina to the extent of attacking the islands, or at the very least clamping down on a UN response. If we need to rely on the concept of the Chinese Government willingly going to war with another nuclear power in support of the illegitimate sovereignty claims of Argentina, then we’re into fiction so bad, it could have passed for some of Tom Clancy’s later works.

This is not to say it could not be done and there is no doubt that there are people out there training very hard, purely as a contingency, to work out how it could (in their eyes) be done. But it would represent one of the most spectacular combined arms operations ever accomplished if it was pulled off, and would require the Argentines to overcome years of neglect, lack of experience and training and work jointly to deliver the mission goal. We must hope that such an operation is never attempted, for the cost would be too high. The simple fact is that British defence policy, force structures and outputs is not based on having to generate a force that can retake the Falkland Islands. It is instead based on making the Islands defensible to the point that no adversary could reasonably hope to capture them without incurring vast losses in the process.

This matters because from a planning perspective there is a danger of media and public pressure to ‘be able to recapture the Falklands’ shaping the wider defence planning assumptions. If the UK is committed to this as a course of action it locks the MOD in to maintaining a maritime force capable of sailing a Brigade plus sized force around the world to conduct an amphibious landing – a useful capability, but not one that is in huge demand anymore. If you look instead at where assets are required, the focus is far more on exciting future littoral operations, such as cooperation with the Netherlands on the future UK/NL amphibious force, as so ably demonstrated by HMS ALBION this week in Den Helder, or its on working with NATO partners to deter Russia. Focusing on the delivery of a ‘Falklands Task Force 2.0’ is to overcommit resources to solve a problem that is unlikely to materialise again without decades of planning and changes in the Argentine position that would easily be detectable by the UK and countered appropriately.

Focusing on the past is sometimes a very healthy thing to do – we can learn much from prior operations and how to do them differently in the future. But we should not be locked into a posture for all time, simply because we’re worried about a problem that doesn’t exist. The solution to the Falkland Islands dispute is actually surprisingly simple, but calls for Argentina to recognise the Islanders as human beings and treat them as such. Maybe over time engaging with respect and a willingness to change the record may generate more goodwill than Argentine threats and treating people who have expressed their democratic desire to be British as second class citizens. The lesson of the Falklands is that democracy is a priceless gift and must be protected at all costs from those who would take it by force, but equally we must look to the future positively and not be shackled by the past. Hopefully in time Argentina will look to build more positively on cooperation and collaboration with the Islanders, not threats and cajoling and acting in a manner that rejects democracy and sustains a frozen conflict, thus enabling the UK, Falklands and Argentina to form a better future together for the benefit of all.